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Our new Graham Ave location is an exciting addition to our longstanding online presence and Grand Street shop - after only selling home & lifestyle for 13 years, we’ve now added womenswear to our offerings. We are known for our curation and assortment feeling unique, exciting and refreshing, as well as having a range of price points (with a lot of them being surprisingly accessible). It was important to me to carry over that same element to our apparel selection. We have a really unique mix of brands that feels fresh and unexpected — a really pleasing mix of big and small brands, probably a lot of brands you’ve never heard of, and price points you aren’t used to seeing next to each other.
I don’t necessarily have a go-to — ironically enough that’s actually kind of the antithesis of how I buy. For example there are certain trade shows you can go to that are essentially made for the “cool” brands, intended to be a more curated experience compared to how overwhelming trade shows can often be, but I actually think that takes the fun out of it. I can usually find something anywhere, even at the scariest tradeshow or a brand that isn’t necessarily “cool”. I often like to take things out of context and I think that’s part of what keeps our assortment feeling unique.
Part of why we moved forward with the lease in the new Graham Ave location was because there’s an entire lower level which we now use as our studio where we make our own fragrance line, consisting of candles, diffusers and room sprays. We used to have a separate art studio space in Greenpoint, which was logistically far from ideal. Now we (literally) make everything in house! I do everything from choosing and naming the scents to designing the packaging. For many years I was also pouring the candles myself, but a longstanding member of our team has been doing all the pouring for a little while now.
I love how New York City is so huge, but everyone is doing their own thing & there’s room for so many different approaches. You’d think it’d be difficult to do something different in NYC or that there’d be a lot of competition, but somehow I haven’t found that to be true.
I felt a pull to steer our brand in a slightly new direction, on a personal level but also based on how I saw the overall retail landscape evolving. I went to school for fashion merchandising, so clothing is something I’ve had a passion for my whole life, but only recently did it feel like the right time to make it a part of what we were already doing. It felt like opening an entire separate location—similar but different—was the way to go with bringing in such a big new category. The two stores are so different in so many ways, we really encourage people to go both vs one or the other; they’re intended to be two totally different experiences.
Oh gosh, I don’t know that I can choose just one—there’s so many brands I’m so stoked to be carrying. We do carry an incredible, sustainable denim & ready to wear brand called Seventy & Mochi that no one else in the city carries, so I think that’s pretty neat, and their stuff is so great. We also carry a pretty small independent brand based out of Uruguay called Tach, which makes such unique and truly special pieces. But that’s just the smallest handful! It’s really about the overall mix of brands—you just have to come in to experience it!